Occurrence of Pheidole tijucana Borgmeier, 1927 (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil

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https://doi.org/10.15560/19.2.169

Occurrence of Pheidole tijucana Borgmeier, 1927 (Hymenoptera,
Formicidae) in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil

DEBORA CRISTINA DE OLIVEIRA GONGALVES', LivIA PIRES DO PRADO’, FABRICIO SEVERO MaG-
ALHAEsS!, MARLINA RIBEIRO ABONIZIO-SANTOS!, MARIA SANTINA DE CASTRO Morini"

1 Laboratério de Mirmecologia do Alto Tieté, Nucleo de Ciéncias Ambientais, Nucleo de Ciéncias Ambientais, Universidade Mogi das
Cruzes, Mogi das Cruzes, SP, Brazil e DCOG: debora_cog@outlook.com @ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3739-9786 e FSM: fabricio-
severo.fa@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7173-658X e MRAS: marlinaribeiro@live.com ® https://orcid.org/0000-0002-
6637-7236 e MSCM: mscmorini@gmail.com ® https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1823-6703

2 Laboratério de Hymenoptera, Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil « livia.pires7@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1819-8767

* Corresponding author

Abstract. Pheidole Westwood, 1839 is a hyperdiverse ant genus that is widely distributed in a variety of terres-
trial ecosystems, especially in the tropics. The identification of Pheidole species is challenging, thus contributing
to the description of several questionable morphospecies in the literature and making the geographic distribution
of most species uncertain. In this work, we present the first records of Pheidole tijucana Borgmeier, 1927 from the
state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The specimens were recorded at Parque Ibirapuera Conservacao, an urban green area
located in the southern part of the city of Sao Paulo. The sampling was performed in 2015, 2016, and 2017 using
pitfall traps. In total, 224 specimens (one major worker and 223 minor workers) of P. tijucana were recorded. Our
new data help fill a distribution gap and highlights the importance of reporting species that are a challenge to
identify.

Keywords. Atlantic Forest, biodiversity, Myrmicinae, urban green area, urban park

Academic editor: Sandor Buys
Received 25 January 2023, accepted 5 March 2023, published 14 March 2022

Gongalves DCO, Prado LP, Magalhaes FS, Abonizio-Santos MR, Morini MSC (2023) Occurrence of Pheidole tijucana Borgmeier, 1927
(Hymenoptera, Formicidae) in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Check List 19 (2): 169-175. https://doi.org/10.15560/19.2.169

Introduction

Pheidole Westwood, 1839 (Myrmicinae) is a hyperdi-
verse ant genus with more than 1,000 valid species and
subspecies, which are widely distributed around the
world. In the Americas, Pheidole is the richest genus of
Myrmicinae (Kempf 1972; Wilson 1976), having been
recorded in the most varied environmental conditions
and habitats (Economo 2015), in disturbed (Jesovnik
and Bujan 2021), preserved (Jahan 2022), and regenera-
ting areas (Aguiar 2022). Around 700 species are found
in the Neotropical Region, 200 of which occur in Brazil
and 60 of which occur in the state of Sao Paulo (Janicki
et al. 2016).

Pheidole species display morphological and behav-

ioral traits that enabled a great adaptive success (i.e., the
division of labor in two morphologically distinct castes;
loss of a functional sting; the complete absence of ova-
ries in the worker castes) (Holldobler and Wilson 1990;
Wilson 2003). Nesting and foraging occur mainly in
deeper soil layers, or above or between the interstices
of the leaf litter (Delabie et al. 2000; Casadei-Ferreira
2021). In the leaf litter, Pheidole may occupy fruits,
seeds, and wood in varying degrees of decomposition
(Castaho-Menzes et al. 2015; Casadei-Ferreira 2021),
and the latter includes twigs (Fernandes et al. 2019).
Barroso et al. (2020) and Almeida et al. (2021) suggest-
ed that the occupation of twigs by species of Pheidole
could be due to a process of selection.

Pheidole tijucana Borgmeier, 1927 belongs to the

©The authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

170

fallax group (Wilson 2003), although its biology
remains unknown. The species was described in 1927
by Borgmeier, based on 15 major workers and 12 minor
workers collected by him in Tijuca, a neighborhood in
the city of Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil).
Many decades later, this species was again recorded,
this time from the state of Bahia (Santos et al. 2017), in
remnants of the Atlantic Forest at different regenera-
tion stages; Santos et al. used pitfall traps and Winkler
extractors to collect the specimens. Although Sao Pau-
lo is one of the Brazilian states best-sampled for its ant
fauna, no other records of P. tijucana have been record-
ed since, even in the recent updates on the Atlantic For-
est species (Feitosa et al. 2021; Silva et al. 2022). Given
the scarcity of information on P. tijucana, we report the
first records of this species from the state of Sao Paulo.

Methods

The specimens were collected in an urban green area,
Parque Ibirapuera Conservacao, which is in the city
of Sao Paulo. The park is within the Brazilian Atlan-
tic Forest domain (Ribeiro et al. 2009); it has an area
of 1,584 m’ and is composed of mixed woodland with
Eucalyptus and other exotic species, as well as native
species. There are flower beds, lawns, and theme gar-
dens on site, with a total of 532 species of vascular plan-
ts, including trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. The
climate is humid subtropical, characterized by a noto-
riously dry winter and a rainy summer; temperatures

23°34,920'S

Sao Paulo

23°35,340'S

© Distribution of Pheidole tiucana
@ New record of Pheidole tijucana
M) Atlantic Forest

46°39,960'W
- ae Se

Check List 19 (2)

vary between 12 °C during the winter and 28 °C during
the summer (annual average temperature 20.3 °C).

Our expeditions to collect specimens were carried
out in the summers and winters of 2015, 2016, and 2017
in four areas of the park (Fig. 1). Ants were collected
with pitfall traps containing 500 mL of preserving liq-
uid (70% ethanol and 10% formaldehyde); the traps
were buried at ground level. In total, 100 pitfall traps
were used, with each area having 25 traps. Each trap
was placed 3 m away from the next closest trap. The
traps remained on site for eight days.

The genus was identified using the key by Baccaro
et al. (2015). The species identification used the keys by
Wilson (2003). The specimens collected were also com-
pared to the type specimens of P. tijucana, which are
deposited at Cole¢ao de Hymenoptera of the Museu
de Zoologia da Universidade de Sao Paulo (MZSP).
The vouchers were also deposited at MZSP (individu-
ally as MZSP67490, MZSP67491, MZSP67492, and
MZSP95643) and at the Laboratorio de Mirmecolo-
gia do Alto Tieté da Universidade de Mogi das Cruzes
(LAMAT) (Souza-Campana et al. 2020).

Results

Pheidole tijucana Borgmeier, 1927
Figures:2,3

New records. BRAZIL - SAo PAULO « Sao Paulo, Par-
que Ibirapuera Conservacao; 23°35'38"N, 046°39'52" W;

S0PE'SEoES S,0Z6 E087

S,092'SEoET

46°39,240'W

Figure 1. Geographic location of the areas of occurrence of Pheidole tijucana in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. A. Study site, Sao
Paulo, Brazil. B. Parque Ibirapuera Conservagao, in the city of Sao Paulo.

Gongalves et al. | Pheidole tijucana in the state of Sao Paulo

171

1mm

Figure 2. Minor worker of Pheidole tijucana. A. Head in frontal view. B. Latero-dorsal view. C. Lateral view.

761 alt.; 29.V.2015; R. Bertani col. leg.; pitfall; 569,
MZSP; 1 major worker, MZSP95643 « same data, except
23°35'33"N, 046°39'44"W; 757 alt.; 22.V.2015; R Ber-
tani col. leg.; pitfall; 49, LAMAT « same data, except
23°35'38"N, 046°39'52"W; 761 alt.; 29.1.2016; R. Ber-
tani col. leg.; pitfall; 108 minor workers, LAMAT; 19,
MZSP67490; 1 minor worker, MZSP67491; 1 minor
worker, MZSP67492 « same data, except 23°35'33"N,
046°39'44"W; 757 alt.; 29.1.2016; R Bertani col. leg.; pit-
fall; 13 minor workers, LAMAT «¢ same data, except
23°35'28"N, 046°39'19"W; 765 alt.; 29.1.2016; R Bertani
col. leg.; pitfall; 1 minor workers, LAMAT e same data,
except 23°35'38"N, 046°39'52"W; 761 alt.; 14.IX.2016;

R. Bertani col. leg.; pitfall; 16 minor workers, LAMAT
e same data, except 23°35'38"N, 046°39'52" W; 761 alt.;
14.11.2017; R Bertani col. leg.; pitfall; 19 minor workers,
LAMAT « same data, except 23°35'33"N, 046°39'44" W;
757 alt.; 14.11.2017; R Bertani col. leg.; pitfall; 1 minor
worker, LAMAT « same data, except 23°35'28"N, 046°
39'19"W; 765 alt.; 14.11.2017, R Bertani col. leg.; pitfall; 2
minor worker, LAMAT.

Total number of specimens: 223 minor workers and
1 major worker.

Identification. As reported by Wilson (2003), the minor
worker of P. tijucana can be identified according to

172

Check List 19 (2)

Figure 3. Major worker of Pheidole tijucana. A. Head in frontal view. B. Lateral view. C. Dorsal view.

the morphological characteristics of the fallax species
group; also, it is distinct from all other species in this
group because of the following characteristics: occiput
constricted to the neck a with broad nuchal collar (Fig.
2A, B), propodeal spines reduced to denticles (Fig. 2C),
and light brown, except for the head, which is a darker,

reddish shade (Fig. 2). The major worker (Fig. 3A-C),
as reported by Wilson (2003), is morphologically simi-
lar to Pheidole lucretii Wilson 2003. However, the two
species are distinguished mainly by the sculpture on
the surface of the head. In P. tijucana most of the occi-
put vertex and frontal lobes are smooth and shiny (Fig.

Gongalves et al. | Pheidole tijucana in the state of Sao Paulo

3A, red arrow), with a presence of short longitudinal
carinulae around midline at the occiput (Fig. 3A, blue
arrow), whereas in P. lucreti the same region of the head
is superficially rugoreticulate.

Discussion

Pheidole tijucana was found in an urban green area
inserted in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest domain. Our
results, as for all previous records of this species (Borg-
meier 1927; Santos et al. 2017), suggest that it inhabits
dense tropical rainforests. The Atlantic Forest consists of
a mosaic of vegetation with distinct forests. One of them
is the dense rainforest, which is characterized by very
high humidity, high temperatures (average of 25 °C), and
high precipitation well distributed throughout the year
(0-60 dry days); vegetation is composed of phanerophy-
tes, lianas, and epiphytes (IBGE 2012). This phytophy-
siognomy presents a wide diversity of ants (Feitosa et al.
2021; Silva et al. 2022), given that in 1 m’ of leaf litter it is
possible to find up to 35 species (Silva and Brandao 2010).

Since the description of P. tijucana, many surveys of
leaf litter have been carried out in the Brazilian Atlan-
tic Forest (i.e., Delabie et al. 2007; Pacheco et al. 2009;
Suguituru et al. 2011, 2013; Silva et al. 2022), includ-
ing in wood structures that are colonized by species
of Pheidole (Souza et al. 2012; Fernandes et al. 2019,
2020). Moreover, several surveys have also been made
in urban areas of Brazil (Bueno et al. 2017), and P. tiju-
cana has not been recorded in any of them. The scar-
city of records for P. tijucana may indicate that the
species is not abundant and has a more limited dis-
tribution. However, the low taxonomic resolution of
hyperdiverse genera such as Pheidole should be taken
into consideration (Kempf 1961; Silva et al. 2022). Col-
onies of the Pheidole species typically have hundreds
to thousands of workers (minor and major), but here
we sampled only one major worker in our sampling,
which may reflect the collection method used. In gen-
eral, minor workers are usually responsible for forag-
ing, while major workers remain mainly inside the nest
(e.g., Wetterer, 2007). Thus, it is possible that the spe-
cies was simply not identified in the above-mentioned
checklists, and that its distribution and abundance are
actually higher than what is now thought.

The lack of knowledge on the distribution and biol-
ogy of insect species is alarming, mainly in face of the
decline in the populations of these invertebrates (San-
chez-Bayo and Wyckhuys 2019; Wagner 2020). Unfor-
tunately, our comprehension of tropical biodiversity is
still severely limited by significant deficiencies in our
knowledge of the taxonomy and distribution of species
(Hortal et al. 2015). Hence, the occurrence record of P.
tijucana in the state of Sao Paulo, in an urban area of a
huge metropolis is quite surprising, and it opens new
possibilities for the study of its biology.

Acknowledgements
We thank the National Council for Scientific and Tech-

173

nological Development (CN Pq, process no. 126691/2021-
5) for the undergraduate research fellowship granted to
the first author. L.P. Prado acknowledges the Sao Pau-
lo Research Foundation (FAPESP) for the postdoctoral
fellowship (grant no. 2022/01974-8).

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: DCOG, LPP, MSCM. Data cura-
tion: DCOG, FSM, MRAS. Formal analysis: DCOG,
LPP. Investigation: DCOG, FSM, MRAS, MSCM, LPP.
Methodology: LPP. Project administration: DCOG.
Supervision: MSCM. Writing - original draft: DCOG.
Writing - review and editing: DCOG, FSM, MRAS,
MSCM, LPP.

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Data Resources

The data underpinning the analysis reported in this
paper are deposited in the Global Biodiversity Infor-
mation Facility and are available at https://doi.org/
10.15468/rv7tdk.